Chapter Eleven

~ Patrick ~

"That was very weird."

"It was," I replied. "I've never seen Peter so adamant about something." I just didn't quite understand why he was so insistent that he and Zaq get married, especially when he'd been the one to run off with a woman, leaving Zaq basically at the altar.

"I don't get it. He clearly likes women. Why was he so insistent that we get married? He didn't seem to care at all if I slept around as long as we were married."

I shook his head in wonder that Zaq and I were thinking along the same lines. "I don't know, but you're right. It was weird."

"Maybe you could call your parents and ask them? Maybe Peter said something to them."

"Peter doesn't talk to my parents about stuff like that. He only ever wants them to see him in a good light so he doesn't lose his golden child status. He'd never discuss his problems with them."

"I don't like the idea of Peter knowing where we live, especially with him being so weird like that."

I gently squeezed Zaq's hand. "Our building is very secure. He can't get to you." I'd kill my brother before I allowed him to harm a hair on Zaq's head.

"I can't spend my every waking moment at home, Patrick. I have to go for groceries and stuff."

"Would you feel better with a bodyguard?"

Zaq peeked up at me. "Can we afford something like that?"

"Not for the long term, but for a little while we can." I'd take out a loan or borrow the money if I needed it.

Zaq grimaced and rubbed his sternum as if he had indigestion. "Do you really think I need a bodyguard? Peter has never been violent before. Do you think he will be now?"

How to explain this without freaking Zaq out anymore than he already was?

"Peter has never been violent with you." I would be eternally grateful for that. "But there have been times in the past where he has blacked out with rage and beaten someone that pissed him off."

I took Zaq's hand between mine, absently rubbing my thumb over his skin. "I'm not saying that's going to happen now, but it has in the past. I'd rather not take any chances with your safety. Until we can be sure that Peter is gone, I'd like to have someone watching over you."

Zaq swallowed tightly before nodding. "Yeah, okay."

I hated scaring him like this, but something was off with my brother. Always had been. Peter didn't like losing his possessions and I was terrified that that was exactly how he saw Zaq, as a possession.

Fortunately, I knew just the man to talk to about this.

By the time we pulled up in front of Jake's building, a plan was already beginning to form in my head. I wasn't positive it was feasible, but I was going to try and make it happen.

"That is a really tall building," Zaq said as he climbed out and looked up at all the dark glass, concrete, and steel.

"Jake bought it a few years back and had it retrofitted to fit his company's needs," I replied. "I've only been here once before back when it was under construction. It'll be interesting to see what Jake has done with it."

We walked into the building and checked in with the lobby receptionist before heading toward the bay of elevators. There was a little more activity than I would have expected for an office building, but Jake had his fingers in a lot of different pies. Each business venture needed its own space to operate.

Jake's personal assistant was waiting for us when we reached his floor. She smiled and waved her hand down the hallway. "Good afternoon, Mr. Scotton. Mr. D'Amato is waiting for you in his office."

"Thank you, Stella," I replied. "Zaq, this is Stella Dumont, Jake's personal assistant. Stella, this is my husband, Zaq Scotton."

"It's nice to meet you, Mr. Scotton."

Zaq smiled at her. "How do you do?"

Stella just smiled at Zaq and gestured down the hallway. I knew it wasn't because she didn't like him or anything like that. She was just trying to be professional.

When we reached Jake's office, Stella knocked and then opened the door. She stepped inside and held the door open for me and Zaq.

Jake immediately stood and started out way, holding out his hand to us. "Patty, Zaq, thanks for coming."

"Thanks for asking us, Jake," I said as I shook the man's hand. As we walked farther into the office, I noticed that Jake was not the only one here. Besides Lucas and Joe, there were four other men that I didn't recognize.

One stood fairly tall with lush brown hair and a trimmed beard. The man sitting next to him had the prettiest sea foam green eyes I'd ever seen.

Next to them were two more men sitting close together. An auburn haired man and one that, well, he was brightly colored from his white slacks and multi-colored shirt right down to his deep red fingernails.

When Stella closed the door, Fred and another man stepped in front of it as if to block the way so no one else could enter the room. Two more were standing at attention near the windows.

That was a little nerve-wracking.

"Jake?"

"Patty, Zaq, I'd like to introduce you to Angus and Spencer King and Alejandro and Delancy Díaz."

"Alejandro?" I knew that name. "I haven't seen you since we were at the university. What have you been up to, man?"

I hadn't seen Alejandro since his dickhead grandfather showed up to school unannounced, caught him in a compromising position with another guy, and dragged him away.

Alejandro got up to shake my hand. "A little of this and a little of that. How about you? Did you ever finish medical school?"

"I did." I grabbed Zaq's hand and pulled him forward to stand at my side. "Baby, Alejandro is one of my old frat brothers."

I had no idea who the other men were.

Zaq shook Alejandro's hand. "It's nice to meet you."

"You look..." Alejandro's eyes cut to me, the man raising one of his eyebrows.

I gave him a small nod.

"I look...?" Zaq queried with a small head tilt.

"Are you in the medical field as well?" Alejandro asked, quickly diverting the conversation.

"I'm a nurse," Zaq admitted. It was the first time I had really heard him say it with such pride. Usually, he said it and then waited to be made fun of.

Alejandro pointed to the man beside him. "This is my husband, Delancy."

I nodded to the man.

"This is Angus King and his husband Spencer," Jake said. "In your line of work you might have heard of King's husband under a different name. Dr. Spencer Matisse."

My eyebrows lifted quickly in surprise. "I have actually heard of him." I frowned as I looked at the brightly colored man. "I expected him to be taller." And less colorful.

The man snorted. "At least you didn't ask me if I was old enough to be a doctor."

My frown deepened. "Are you old enough?"

He looked pretty young.

Zaq let out a small chuckle when Spencer's eyes rolled. Apparently, he found the man's attitude amusing. I kind of did, too, but I wasn't going to admit that.

"Sit, sit." Jake gestured to the small seating area before taking one of the lone chairs. "I asked Spencer here because of his experience in the medical field."

Made sense.

"Joe will be joining us in a few minutes," Jake explained. "He had a couple of phone calls to make. Lucas might be dropping by as well if he can get out of his meeting early."

I nodded my understanding. "Joe had mentioned to me when we met up a few months ago, that there might be a need for an on-call doctor. We never discussed any specifics, just that there might be a need."

"When Jake mentioned the idea to us," King said, "we felt there was some merit. An on-call doctor is needed by a lot of us due to the nature of our businesses. Having the money we do, it tends to put us in danger. Having someone we could call day or not would be beneficial to all of us, but it needs to be someone we can trust and have complete confidence in."

I glanced between King and Alejandro and then over to Jake. "What am I missing?"

"King runs Queens."

Ah. That explains it.

"Alejandro is running Brooklyn," Jake said simply. "Granted, he is in the process of trying to move most of his business to the legal side of things, but as it stands now, it wouldn't be a good idea for us to go running to a mobster's doctor husband every time we sneeze."

My jaw dropped as I slowly panned to Alejandro. "I thought you wanted out of that line of work."

"I do," Alejandro stated, "which is why I am trying to take things legal, but it's a slow process and I still have people I have to report to."

"Alejandro recently opened a security firm," Jake continued. "His company does everything from training bodyguards to security for your home, office, and vehicle. It seems to have been pretty lucrative so far."

"And I hope it stays that way," Alejandro said, "or Spain is going to be very upset with me."

"I'm feeling very lost right now," Zaq stated. "I only understand about half of what you are saying."

I pressed my lips thin for a moment before saying, "Alejandro is mafia, Zaq. He runs Brooklyn."

"No, I figured that part out," Zaq replied quickly. "I'm confused about the whole going straight thing. Can you do that in the mafia?"

"Yes and no," Alejandro said. "My superiors don't really care how they get their money as long as they get it. If I can find legitimate ways to send them money, then I don't have to worry about them coming for me or the police arresting me." He smiled at the man at his side. "I'd rather spend my golden years with Delancy than behind bars."

I could see the appeal there.

I glanced at King. "Your husband is a doctor. Why not just use him as your on-call doctor?"

"While I am licensed to practice medicine in several states," Spencer began, "it's not always convenient for me to treat people. I can in an emergency, and have, but its hit and miss."

"So, it's not convenient for Spencer to treat people because of your line of work?" Zaq asked.

"It's a security risk for both Spencer and the patient," King explained. "Spencer is not allowed to leave the estate without at least four guards accompanying him. There are too many people out there that would try to use him to get to me."

"It's a pain in the ass to get them gowned up and sterile enough for a surgery room," Spencer added before glaring at King. "And he won't let me go anywhere without them."

King's arm tightened around the colorful man. "For good reason and you know it."

Spencer's eyes rolled again. "Maybe."

There was a story there.

I wasn't going to ask.

"What we're wanting to set up is an on-call doctor team—you and Zaq—to see to our medical needs," Jake started. "We'd set up a small clinic for you where you could treat patients that needed more extensive tests, but most of it would be house calls."

"What if someone needed surgery or intensive care?" I asked.

"The clinic would be connected to one of the local hospitals so anything that needed more intensive care could be dealt with there, but you'd still be the doctor on record."

"Our licenses haven't been approved yet," I pointed out. Granted, our state exams were only two weeks away, but we still couldn't practice medicine in the state until we had those nifty little pieces of paper.

"This all hinges on you getting your license in New York," Spencer said. "It also wouldn't hurt to get it for a few of the surrounding states as well."

Might as well, although that meant a whole lot more studying. Medical practice was pretty much the same, but each state had different regulations that needed to be followed.

It could be a real pain sometimes.

"Here's what we propose for you and Zaq." Jake handed me a black leather bound folder. "If you agree, we can get started right away. I figure it will take a couple of months to get everything set up and we may need your input on some of it. Your experience as a hospital administrator will come in handy for that."

I flipped open the folder and started reading over the proposal Jake had prepared. Zaq leaned in close so he could read along with me.

My jaw dropped when I got to the salary listed. I glanced up, staring at Jake. "A million dollars a year? Isn't that a little excessive?"

Jake's eyebrows lifted. "You're arguing about the salary?"

Well, when you put it like that... "No, not exactly, but I only made a hundred and fifty thousand a year in Texas. A million dollars seems like a lot."

"Look, Patty," Jake started. "The people you will be on-call for? Most of them are millionaires, some even billionaires. The amount of money each one of them would contributing to a fund to take care of your salary is like pocket change to them. I doubt they'd even miss it."

On the surface, the deal they were offering us was a dream. A completely decked out clinic, a million dollar salary, and not having to deal with patients all day long or hospital administrators.

"What's the catch?"

There had to be one.

Jake smiled. "The confidentiality agreement is iron clad. If you broke it, you could only wish for jail time."

"You know there would be some things that had to be reported, right?"

Jake nodded. "Anything that has to do with the medical needs of a patient as set by the state guidelines is acceptable. More than that..." Jake shook his head. "Stay away from reporters."

Zaq snorted as he sat back in his seat. "Like I want reporters in my life."

"Reporters aren't always bad," Delancy said, speaking for the first time. "I even have a few on speed dial."

"You're married to a mobster," I pointed out. "Why would you be speaking to reporters?"

Wasn't that bad for business? And his husband's ability to stay out of prison?

Delancy smirked. "Sometimes, you need a reporter to spin a wild tale, even if it's not a complete lie."

Alejandro chuckled. "Delancy is a master at taking the truth and twisting it to say what we want it to say. He doesn't lie, but he's very good at making people see what we want them to see."

When I glanced at Delancy, the man wagged his eyebrows at me.

"Alejandro gets invited to all of the social events of the season because the public sees him as a great philanthropist, strong business owner, and the grandson-in-law of the legendary businessman Delancy Matisse. Very few people actually know what he really does for a living."

After saying that and making me wonder if he was Batman, Delancy sat forward and grew serious. "There is another part of this that I want to discuss with you, a part that comes strictly from me and would be paid on a case-by-case basis."

"I'm listening."

"I belong to an organization that helps battered men and women escape their abusers. Most of them—"

I held up my hand. "Say no more. I'm in. Except for the cost of medicine, I won't charge you anything to treat them."

I'd seen enough battered men and women pass through my hospital to know there was a need out there for caring doctors that wouldn't look the other way or return the victims to their abusers. If I could help Delancy save a few of them, I was all in.

"Before you agree, you need to know that the work I do is for people that can't escape their abusers through normal channels, like say if the abuser is a police officer or something. My organization helps them escape, get the help they need, get the evidence to take their abusers to trial, and then get them set up somewhere that they can start a new life."

"There's a trust fund set up for this secret organization, Patty," Jake said. "We all contribute to it in one manner or another. Sometimes its money, sometimes its security, and sometimes its medical care. The important thing is to get these people the help they need and put their abusers behind bars."

"The other important thing is to keep it a secret," Delancy said. "Think of it as the underground railroad. No one talks about it because word cannot get out. Not everything we do is above board."

I narrowed my eyes. "Give me an example." I wouldn't make a decision or a judgment until I knew more.

"I won't name names, but we had one woman that was being abused by her cop husband. Every time she tried to report it, not only did her buddies tell him, but they sent her back to him so he could beat her up all over again."

I grit my teeth. "Tell me he's behind bars."

"Oh, he is." Delancy grinned. "And so are a few of his cop buddies."

"How?"

"I have a friend that is handy with a computer. He tapped into the police station video feed and made copies of her interview and the police calling the husband and handing her back over to him. That, along with her medical records, was enough to put them all way for a few years. She's living in Nebraska now under a different name."

"Good."

I was still in.